Payments app Yoyo Wallet rakes in £12Mn to power its expansion in Europe

London-headquartered Yoyo Wallet, that combines payment with loyalty to provide real value to both retailers and consumers, had raised £12 million in Series B round from Horeca, the venture arm of Metro Group. The deal, which is subject to FCA approval, saw additional investment from Woodford Investment Management and Touchstone Innovations as well.

With the fresh inflow of funds, the company will focus on expanding its partnerships with UK high-street retailers. In addition, it will further expand the consumer and retail capabilities of its platform, and power its international expansion, starting with Europe.

Launched in 2013, Yoyo Wallet has a very subtle aim — they want to assist retailers in driving business growth via mobile-first customer engagement.

Retailers can rely on its app or their personalised app built and powered by Yoyo to know, influence and simplify their customer’s purchasing behaviours while providing an engaging customer experience. Its platform offers a combination of fast and simple-to-use mobile ordering, payments, and personalized loyalty programs, all backed by an analytics and campaign platform for retailers. Alain Falys, Co-Founder and CEO of Yoyo Wallet, in a statement, adds,

This new funding will allow us to provide the benefits of customer identification and mobile engagement to a wider array of retailers, large and small, in the UK and across Europe. We could not have found a better combination of Investors to support us through this next stage of growth.

Prior to this round, Yoyo had raised funding worth £8.7 million to fuel their growth in the UK Education, Corporate and High Street sectors. This enabled them to gain over 400,000 registered users; and an acceptance network of more than 1,700 outlets including Caffè Nero and Planet Organic. The company had even stepped into Asia by entering Singapore last year, by commencing its operations at Foodclique, a food court at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

It allows retailers of all sizes to provide their customers with a best-in-class branded mobile experience, and also customize their offerings from a slew of available Yoyo services.